Jessica Ennis is sitting quietly in a hotel suite that hums with activity, the
calm in the eye of the storm. It’s a position she’s used to: watch her
compete and while the stadium swirls around her, she will be standing
quietly, focused on what’s ahead, which not infrequently in her case
means coming first. Today, the most visible home-grown face of the 2012
Olympics, and the athlete upon whom most of the nation’s hopes depend, is
musing on how it all began.

“I fell into doing the heptathlon, and for years I absolutely hated it,” she
says. “Having to